House energy week to feature votes on LNG, offshore drilling, pipelines, efficiency

E&E News
Nick Juliano, Phil Taylor and Elana Schor, E&E reporters
June 23, 2014

Think of it as shark week for the energy and environment set.

The House this week is planning to focus its attention on a series of bills to promote offshore oil drilling, pipeline construction, liquefied natural gas exports and energy efficiency in what has become a regular tradition under Republicans of setting aside a specified "energy week" to focus attention on the issues -- and score political points.

The week also will feature another round of one-upsmanship between Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and the man he hopes to unseat in November, Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), over who is doing more to speed up exports of liquefied natural gas. Gardner late Friday offered a manager's amendment to his LNG bill, H.R. 6, that would reduce from 90 days to 30 the amount of time for the Energy Department to decide on pending export applications.

Joining Gardner's bill on the floor this week will be H.R. 3301, from Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), to change the permitting process for cross-border pipelines, and H.R. 4899, from Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), to expand oil and gas drillers' access to the outer continental shelf.

The Rules Committee meets today to set the terms of floor debate for the Gardner and Upton bills, and will likely formally adopt Gardner's manager's amendment, which is co-sponsored by Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas). Tomorrow, the Rules Committee will advance the Hastings bill for floor debate later in the week. It also will consider the fiscal 2015 energy and water spending bill that passed out of the Appropriations Committee last week, but that will not come to the floor until the week of July 7, when the House returns from its Independence Day recess, aides said Friday.

The House also is expected to pass a handful of energy bills under suspension of the rules, a procedure that requires a two-thirds majority to pass and is typically reserved for noncontroversial legislation.

The Gardner bill likely will get the most attention this week, given the extent to which LNG exports have drawn bipartisan interest as a potential foreign policy tool in the wake of tensions between Ukraine and Russia, which is one of the world's largest natural gas producers. The issue also sparks concern among environmentalists wary of the new hydraulic fracturing that exports could possibly generate, as well as from chemical and manufacturing companies that use natural gas as a feedstock and worry that too many exports would cause domestic prices to rise sharply.

LNG issues also are playing heavily in Colorado, a leading gas-producing state where Gardner is seeking to unseat Udall in November.

Udall last week introduced a new version of his own LNG bill, which is similar to Gardner's but sets a deadline of 45 days on DOE decisions rather than 90 days. A senior DOE official said at a hearing on the bill that its 45-day deadline would be achievable (E&E Daily, June 20).

In an interview Friday, Gardner said additional changes could be made to his bill if they would bring more bipartisan support. He painted the overall effort as a means to put more gas on the global markets to help U.S. allies. Russia's control over gas supplies to Ukraine and much of Europe has emerged as a key factor in the ongoing conflict there.

"The more support we have from as broad a spectrum as possible sends a positive message to our friends that we're on the way to help -- and to our enemies that we're on the way to help our friends," Gardner said.

In addition to Gardner's LNG bill, the House also plans to vote on H.R. 3301, a bipartisan proposal to end presidential permitting authority over cross-border energy infrastructure -- oil and gas pipelines as well as transmission lines -- created by a 2004 executive order. That order became a potent tool to slow down Keystone XL, the controversial Canadian oil sands crude pipeline that the House already has voted to fast-track more than half a dozen times during this Congress.

The new bill, authored by Upton and Green, would create "certificates of crossing" for continental energy infrastructure, issued by regulatory agencies within 120 days unless the project at hand were deemed not in the "public interest." Its terms would not directly give approval to KXL but would allow the pipeline's sponsor, TransCanada Corp., to reapply for a permit even following a possible veto by the Obama administration (E&E Daily, June 19).

Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.) joined Green in backing the legislation in the Energy and Commerce Committee, but the majority of Democrats are likely to oppose it during floor debate. Environmental groups pushing hard for a White House rejection of KXL also are arrayed against the bill, though its passage in the GOP-controlled House is all but assured.

Republicans will also bring up a massive package of bills seeking to expedite drilling on federal lands while opening up new waters off South Carolina, Virginia and Southern California to drilling.

Many, if not most, of the provisions in Hastings' H.R. 4899 have been debated and passed by the House in previous years.

As in past years, Republicans are arguing that increased domestic production will lead to lower gasoline prices. And they're hoping that pitch will resonate with American drivers as pump prices this week hit a six-year high for June 18 and are likely to remain high this summer due to unrest in Iraq, according to a USA Today report that cited AAA.

Others contend that U.S. crude production has limited influence on global crude prices and American gasoline prices, citing an Associated Press study in 2012 that showed no statistical correlation between U.S. crude production and the price at the pump over the past 36 years.

The Republican package is an industry wish list that would overturn or undermine a bevy of Obama administration energy and lands policies. It would set 60-day deadlines to approve drilling permits on federal lands while charging environmentalists $5,000 to protest permit and leasing decisions. It would reinstate a George W. Bush administration plan to promote experimental oil shale development in the Rocky Mountains while also overturning the Obama administration's sweeping management plan for the 22.5-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A).

It would also provide statutory backing for the reorganization of the former Minerals Management Service -- though not quite how the Obama administration would prefer -- while requiring that offshore areas be leased based primarily on the size of their mineral deposits, among many other provisions.

Energy week kicks off this afternoon with votes on several suspension bills ahead of the Rules Committee meeting tonight. The day's agenda includes:

• S. 2086, from Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), which is designed to prevent propane shortages and passed the Senate last month (Greenwire, May 22).
• H.R. 4092, from Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.), which would aid energy efficiency projects for school buildings.
• A concurrence to the Senate amendment to H.R. 316, from Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.), which would pave the way for a Connecticut town to reopen two hydropower dams (Greenwire, May 23).
• H.R. 4801, from Rep. Adam Kinzinger (D-Ill.), which would direct DOE to study how thermal insulation affects energy and water systems in federal buildings.

Schedule: The Rules Committee will meet Monday, June 23, at 5 p.m. in H-313 Capitol on H.R. 6 and H.R. 3301.

Schedule: The Rules Committee will meet Tuesday, June 24, at 3 p.m. in H-313 Capitol on H.R. 4899 and H.R. 4923.